A little 1970s-era building in Manhattan’s far West Village has attracted a number of high-profile buyers including the model, a ‘Top Chef Just Desserts’ judge and media executives

From the outside, this small co-op building in Manhattan’s West Village looks a little like a cheap motel: a low-slung brick rectangle with bland, 1970s-era balconies.

The plain facade belies the glamour within. Fashion model Karlie Kloss lives here, as does Julie Moss, director of program planning and scheduling for HBO, and her husband, Oliver Gold, a real-estate agent with Douglas Elliman. Hedge-fund manager Jeremy Bronfman, the 29-year-old grandson of Seagram billionaire Edgar Bronfman Sr., bought a unit here in 2012 and in January sold it to his mother, Fiona Woods. Dannielle Kyrillos, 39, a “Top Chef Just Desserts” judge and lifestyle editor, purchased a place with her husband, Jean-Paul Kyrillos, a media executive and former publisher of Travel & Leisure Magazine.

With one side on Charles Street and the other on Charles Lane, a quaint, cobblestone byway that once served as the boundary to a 19th-century prison, the building is often called 151 Charles Street and has just 12 units united by plant-filled patios in front. The result is an intimacy that is hard to come by.

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The units are all two-bedroom duplexes with skylights, open living rooms and individual street entrances—functional townhouses that cost a fraction of most similarly laid-out residences in the area. The far-western reaches of the West Village where it sits is now hot: Musician Jon Bon Jovi and swimsuit model Irina Shayk bought apartments in a new luxury 15-story building across the street, according to public records.

Ms. Moss and Ms. Kyrillos say in the summer, residents rope off Charles Lane and set up an inflatable swimming pool for the children; during the holidays they bake each other cookies. Ms. Kyrillos dubs the building “East Coast Melrose Place,” after the 1990s TV show, because when she moved there she became friends with other young couples.

Residents are an eclectic group, ranging in age from their early 20s to older people who have lived there for decades. (The building was completed in 1979.) “It is like we stumbled into a time machine,” says Ms. Kyrillos, who with her husband bought their unit for $1.55 million in 2007.

Mr. Bronfman, who started an investment company called Sixty Capital, bought a unit in 2012 for $1.885 million—a price he thought was unusually low for a West Village townhouse. “Some people are turned off by the outside, but I thought it was perfect,” he says. When Mr. Bronfman’s wife got pregnant, they decided to move to a one-floor apartment in SoHo and he sold his unit to his mother, Fiona Woods, for $2.5 million in January. His mom had been living in Westchester and wanted an apartment in New York where she could walk outside; she already felt comfortable there, says Mr. Bronfman. “It helped facilitate her move,” he says.

Mr. Gold and Ms. Moss first saw what would become their apartment at an open house in 2010. The owner was present, smoking cigarettes and eating Mallomars, Mr. Gold says. There were boxes and cats everywhere, the walls were painted red and yellow and it smelled like cigarette smoke, Mr. Gold says. They bought it for $1.25 million and spent $500,000 on an extensive renovation; they moved in the summer of 2011. Earlier this month, they put their unit on the market for $2.495 million, citing the building’s distance from their daughter’s preschool.

Ms. Kloss, the model, bought her unit in 2012, paying $1.975 million, according to public records. When Ms. Moss learned of the sale, she jokingly thought, “Oh my God I’m going to lose my husband.” Ms. Kloss turned out to be an ideal neighbor, Ms. Moss says. They don’t see her that often, she’s really nice to their 3-year-old daughter, Pearl, and it improved Mr. Gold’s habits. In hopes of running into her, “he started taking the garbage out more” says Ms. Moss. Ms. Kloss’s spokeswoman declined to comment.

Prices in the co-op building have ranged between $1.25 million to $2.5 million in the past few years, depending on the market. As in any co-op, prospective buyers need board approval. Ms. Kyrillos says she was nervous because she and her now-husband weren’t married at the time they applied, but the board was mostly concerned with maintaining the sense of community and with, as she puts it, “protecting the special situation we all have here.”

Even this community couldn’t ignore the booming demand for large spaces downtown. Last March the six-member co-op board, with support from all the residents, put the entire building up for sale for $59 million, calling it 8 Charles Lane and advertising it as a “unique opportunity to construct the ultimate 88-foot-wide single family mansion in the West Village.” The 9,100-square-foot footprint would yield a development of over 27,800 square feet, the ad went on to say, and the co-op building currently there could be “delivered vacant.”

Mr. Gold said the building’s residents decided to “give it a shot.”

Mr. Bronfman says he knew the land value was high and the site was “underbuilt” so from an investment perspective it made sense to see if they could sell it.

Residents say they received offers in the $40 million-plus range from developers looking to create a new multiunit building. The board had decided that unless they got a certain price within a certain time frame, they’d take it off the market, which they did in June.

Mr. Bronfman says he never expected the board to accept a lower offer but he was nonetheless a little disappointed; it would have meant selling his unit for about $1 million more than he did. Mr. Gold, who is on the board, says from the beginning they agreed that if all the shareholders didn’t agree on an offer they wouldn’t sell. He says there has been no acrimony since the decision—something that was important because there are so few residents and they see each other often.

Ms. Kyrillos says she’s happy the building didn’t sell. “Why would I want to move?” she says. “Where else could I have what I have?”